Faculty News: New Professorship Honors Hutchinson

On September 29, 2006 Thayer School unveiled more than the new MacLean Engineering Sciences Center. That same day Dean Joseph Helble surprised Dean Emeritus Charles “Hutch” Hutchinson — and the Thayer School community — by announcing the establishment of the Charles E. Hutchinson ’68A Professorship in Innovation. Funded by a gift from John H. Krehbiel Jr., the professorship is intended to “recognize and reward members of the faculty whose teaching is true to the highest standards of Dartmouth’s educational mission and whose scholarship has contributed significantly to the advancement of interdisciplinary knowledge.”

The professorship is the latest chapter in a long connection between Hutchinson and Krehbiel. When Hutch served as dean of Thayer School from 1984 until 1994, and again from 1997 to 1998, Krehbiel chaired Thayer School’s Board of Overseers. The two oversaw a major facilities renovation to Cummings Hall in the late 1980s and helped raised $40 million for the engineering school.

Among other achievements as dean, Hutch founded the Master of Engineering Management program. As dean emeritus and the John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technologies, he directed the M.E.M. program and developed and taught courses in electrical engineering, design, Total Quality Management, and emerging technologies. In 2000 he co-founded the biotechnology company GlycoFi with Professor Tillman Gerngross and served as CEO of GlycoFi until it was acquired in spring 2006 by Merck. A man who doesn’t know the meaning of retirement, Hutch is in the midst of his latest venture: developing a new Thayer School course in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.